Comments on: Microsoft disabling Word 2003's 'fast save' feature

As part of an update to Office 2003, Microsoft is cutting off the feature, which it says can save time, but risks exposing confidential information.

[rcrusoe]

Say it isn't so

The hidden data in MS Word files has been one of the best ways
of catching government and corporate wrong doing.

If MS cleans up all the security problems with their documents it's
going to be a lot harder keeping up with these bozos. ;)

[timber2005]

Good catch

Very very good catch. Makes me wonder if thats the reason its being fixed, as well if there is some option to turn it back on.

But hey, the government is probably running Word 97. I know that NC State DOT is...

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

The real threat: damaged documents!

Since "fast save" was first available, it has been known to mangle documents. It could mangle them so badly that they could not be opened again, and the rats nest of pointers and binary crap of the fast save technique made it unlikely you could dig your text out with any recovery tools.

The advice from professional writers has always been to turn fast save OFF and leave it OFF. Spending an extra 10 seconds per save is far better than spending hours reconstructing a document that was run through the Save-O-Matic word blender.